


Time in a Bottle

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [29]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Communication, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Junoverse | Juno Steel Universe, Memory Loss, Miscommunication, Other, Temporary Amnesia, Whump, anne finally wrote a mental health fic, for just a little bit, tagging for the whole fic, this hurts progressively less throughout the chapters trust me, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28062399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: “Oh, darling,” Peter breathed, muffled behind his hand.Nureyev hadn’t called him ‘darling’ once since their reunion.“Nureyev, I—”“Something awful must have happened to my memory, Juno,” he cut Juno off before he could utter another word. Even with his head buried in the crook of Juno’s neck, he seemed to worship the name, as if every moment in which it hung in the air just past his lips was a blessed one. “God, I thought you left me. I thought I had awoken alone in that dreadful room and you had gone during the night.”AKA hopeless_eccentric got an anon commission that finally gave them an excuse to do an amnesia fic
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921492
Comments: 72
Kudos: 211





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all, this one's a bit heavier, so make sure to mind the content warnings!!
> 
> Content warning for injury, referenced gun violence, temporary amnesia, minor burn, implied/referenced sexual content, description of dissociation

After Nureyev took a stun bolt to the head, Juno thought the day couldn’t get much worse from there. However, he should have known better to assume Fate would stop making an ashtray out of him just because he had been burned before.

“He’s going to be okay,” Vespa had assured him that evening when a family meeting was scrapped in favor of an emergency visit to the ship’s clinic.

“He’s been out for twice as long as I’ve ever seen,” Juno protested in a hushed tone, as if a rise in his voice could do anything to shake Nureyev from his drowsy synthetic sleep.

“Look, Steel,” Vespa huffed. “As your doctor, I need you to trust me on this. He took a hit in a bad place to take a hit. The worst you’re gonna get is a couple more hours out than usual. He doesn’t have anything wrong with his heart, unless you count falling for you—”

“Hey—”

“But the only side effect I’d worry about is a bit of amnesia when he wakes up,” Vespa finished.

“Amnesia?”

“Mild at worst. From what I’ve seen, it’s usually the last couple of hours and some confusion, if at all,” she continued.

Juno swallowed, finding it harder and harder to tear his gaze from Nureyev long enough to look her in the eye.

“Steel,” Vespa added, her expression softening slightly when he looked up. “He’s going to be fine. I’m not worried enough to keep him in the clinic overnight. Not because I don’t like him or anything—I don’t, but that’s not the reason. This looks a lot worse than it’s going to be.”

Juno nodded. He tried to say a few things in response, but for the first occasion in what felt like a lifetime, didn’t have a verbal barb or something witty to say in response. He could only let out a shaky breath and glance back towards Nureyev, forehead wrapped in bandaging and face more slack than it even appeared in sleep. 

Of course Nureyev would only ever be relaxed by a near-death experience. Juno didn’t have time to stomach that before Vespa’s hand made its way up to his shoulder, then paused, thinking better of the touch, and stuffed itself back into the pocket of her overalls.

“You’re not off the hook just ‘cause you didn’t get shot,” she added. “Mental health and all that. If you’ve gotta skip stream night, treat this as a doctor’s note.”

Juno managed a nod.

“Thanks,” he returned.

“Now get the hell out of here. Ransom’s been stinking up my clinic with his goddamn cologne for long enough,” she huffed.

“Hey, I picked that—”

“All the more reason,” Vespa sniffed.

When Juno had yet to move, she shot him a potent enough glare that Juno was surprised he didn’t receive some physical injury from it. He needed no more convincing to shake the numbing ache of shock and grief from his joints and make them move into a marionette of a position that would carry Nureyev back to Juno’s quarters.

In a cold and bitter way, Juno couldn’t help but think of the way spouses were meant to carry one another across the thresholds of old and new homesteads after their wedding. Nureyev didn’t have his hands laced around the back of his neck or his gaze on Juno’s jaw or his lips high on his cheek. Instead, he was as limp as a storm-slain garden, half-bloomed and still rendered faint, hanging onto a shadow of life with waterlogged roots.

Nureyev wasn’t particularly heavy, especially after Juno had accustomed himself to carrying him place to place when his leg cast wouldn’t allow for it. However, he was much different as a dead weight, and every second it took to lay him out atop the bed without waking him or causing his head any further injury burned and ached in Juno’s arms with something that had to be more than just exertion. 

The same ache refused to cease, even with Nureyev’s head placed soundly atop a pillow and the covers pulled over him, just to ensure if pain was the first thing he felt upon waking, comfort would be the second.

When he finished ensuring all was well and Nureyev had yet to wake, Juno stepped back from the bed and stuck his hands in his pockets.

Buried in blankets and bandages and the tight grip of synthetic sleep, Nureyev almost looked small.

With the feet between them seeming to gape into a great, empty thousand miles, Juno decided he couldn’t stand just sitting there any longer. The time on the clock be damned, he wasn’t going to leave Nureyev alone, even if it meant an oddly early hour to climb into bed.

Even if he ended up shifting a few times throughout the evening, their position remained relatively the same. Juno guided Peter’s head atop his chest at an angle where they could lay close with Nureyev’s head still properly elevated and none of his bandages disturbed. 

Meanwhile, Juno swallowed down the burning behind his eyes and busied his hands elsewhere, be it carding through Peter’s hair or holding an ice pack to the burn on occasion, as was instructed for when Nureyev woke up and was able to do so himself.

While the distant sounds of an almost familiar stream and hushed chatter lilted their way under the crack of the door, Juno sat in near-silence, the only noise the soft sounds of Nureyev’s breathing and the rustle of his fingertips brushing along his scalp. Once, he broke that unspoken rule of quiet to press a kiss to the top of Nureyev’s head, as if that might do a thing to make him feel better.

After an hour or so that might have been a week, Nureyev stirred.

Juno opened his mouth to speak, but Vespa’s warning of potential amnesia still hung low and heavy in the air. Not wanting to surprise Peter, he waited a moment for Nureyev to huff out a sleepy sigh and cuddle closer to his chest, only stopping when the brush of his forehead against Juno’s nightshirt made his eyebrows crease and mouth fall open with the unexpected pain.

“Easy,” Juno murmured, a hand gingerly guiding him back to his former spot. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Well,” Nureyev yawned. “There go my plans. It seemed a lovely day to get injured.”

Juno rolled his eyes, though he couldn’t help the shaky breath he let out in tandem. Whatever irrational part of himself worried that Nureyev would be anything less than a dopier version of himself began to flicker out while Peter continued to shift until he found a closer position than the one in which he’d been laid out.

“How’s your head?”

“Well that’s hardly something you should be asking a gentleman after but one night together,” Nureyev chuckled, thoroughly missing when Juno’s affectionate grin slipped.

“Hey, um—whatever your name is,” he started, cautious of letting anything too private slip. Nureyev cut him off with a laugh.

“Truly, I apologize for this, but now I must say I feel much better about forgetting your name as well,” Peter smiled. “You’ve undone me, you cad.”

Juno shook his head.

“Where do you think we are?”

“On a star hauler, leaving Mars, of course,” Nureyev continued, eyes fixed on the ceiling, even if some level of focus in them died. “Leaving—”

“Leaving what?”

Nureyev swallowed, then shook his head. When the motion seemed to be too much, he winced, the quiet gasp only stifling when Juno pressed a kiss into his hair and he managed to get comfortable once more.

“He’s of no matter anymore,” Peter said so quietly Juno almost didn’t hear him. “He made his choice. Like I said, no matter. Least of all to you.”

“Nureyev,” Juno breathed. “Oh, God.”

“How do you—” Nureyev started, turning so fast an audible gasp of pain fell from his lips. 

“Hey, hey, don’t move so much,” Juno tried to calm him while he squirmed, though whether to leave their tentative embrace or to find the source of his injury, he could not tell. “You hurt your head and passed out.”

“You knew—” Nureyev sputtered when he finally managed to back away, his shoulders high and tight and pressed up against the headboard of the bed. “You know my name.”

Juno opened his mouth to reply, perhaps to form some truth or soothing half truth until Nureyev trusted him enough to sleep away the fog in his mind. 

However, Peter managed to turn his head first, and the fear that had set his eyes alight in the dim evening room flickered and died the moment his gaze fixed upon Juno’s face. A hand caught over his mouth and despite what pain it must have caused him, he shook his head in a quiet disbelief. For someone who liked to keep his thoughts and feelings private to a fault, wearing such potency of emotion on his sleeve was enough to make fear jolt at Juno’s heart.

“Oh, darling,” he breathed, muffled behind his hand.

Nureyev hadn’t called him ‘darling’ once since their reunion.

“Nureyev, I—” Juno started to sputter, an apology already on his lips when Nureyev seized his arms around his chest in a hug.

“Something awful must have happened to my memory, Juno,” he cut Juno off before he could utter another word. Even with his head buried in the crook of Juno’s neck, he seemed to worship the name, as if every moment in which it hung in the air just past his lips was a blessed one. “I must have had the most terrible dream and interpreted it as truth.”

“Yeah.”

He kept his gaze firmly on a spot on the wall across from him. Even if he could manage a hand in Nureyev’s hair to hold him steady while his breath began to shake and go ragged, Juno was fairly sure he wasn’t a strong enough person to so much as try to meet Peter’s eye.

“God, I thought you left me,” Nureyev choked. “I thought I had awoken alone in that dreadful room and you had gone during the night.”

Juno tried not to think about the fact that Nureyev was crying. He tried not to think about the fact that the last time he had heard so much as a tear threatening at the gates of his eyes, he had been a gangly teenager with blood on his face and a knife in his hand. He tried not to think about the fact that the hand that had rendered the master thief of a thousand names a mess of tears and sputtered breaths was his own.

“Hey,” Juno finally found it within himself to murmur, tucking Nureyev’s head close and waiting with his eyes squeezed shut until he stopped shuttering with every breath. “Hey, there you go. Just breathe.”

“It felt so real,” Nureyev sniffed. “Like a memory, instead of a dream.”

“Just breathe,” Juno repeated, for he knew he didn’t have it within him to lie. “We’re on a ship—hell, Rita’s here too—and we’re safe, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Eventually, Nureyev seemed to take his advice, and with his eyes still bleary and red and his touch still a little too desperate, cuddled back into Juno’s side. Juno did his best to smile and keep from audibly grinding his teeth while Peter tried to go back to sleep after seeing the hour of night and recognizing his injury. 

The Peter Nureyev at his side was living in some kind of fantasy that Juno ached for. As much as the confusion for somebody he had used to keep his bed warm had been painful, he would have far rather been some face without a name than this. However, with Nureyev’s yawns sounding so sweet they broke his heart every time they drifted past his lips, Juno knew he didn’t have the stomach to burst his bubble with the truth.

After a while, Nureyev drifted off into a natural sleep, which looked far kinder on him than the electric stun of the blaster. The odd angle of his head upon Juno’s chest made him snore, his sharp teeth poking past his lips in a way that made his chest cavity feel too small for his heart. 

He loved Peter Nureyev, and Peter Nureyev loved him. He had also hurt Peter Nureyev to an extent he knew he would never be able to measure.

Juno swallowed and tried to reconcile it with memories of earnest conversations that once came easily when it didn’t feel like there was a cotton ball at the back of his throat. He tried deep breaths. He tried breathing and thinking exercises until he was sick of numbers and breaths and counting sheep. Eventually, he merely tried to watch as Nureyev drifted off to sleep, trusting him and loving him and knowing nothing of that night years ago that Juno couldn’t pry from his mind if he wanted to.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does this get better? uh. eventually. i promise
> 
> Content warnings for food, injury mention, discussing of temporary amnesia, dissociation, spiraling (both anxiety and depression), temporary miscommunication, nureyev-typical ageism/self hatred, description of sensory overload,

Nureyev couldn’t help a guilty groan when he glanced over at the clock and saw the hour was nearly eleven upon his waking. 

Even on days when he preferred to spend the majority of the morning in a blanket burrito, Juno was usually out of bed by such a time. At least the thought of being greeted by a teasing straight-man to his weary, half awake self was pleasant. 

On such mornings when Juno had to be somewhere far earlier than usual and managed to rise first, he would greet a tired Nureyev with all the care of an injured one, and as much as Peter could tell he was being partially mocked for being utterly useless when still waking up, he didn’t mind so long as Juno’s arms were warm and soft and welcoming.

Peter only realized he wasn’t alone when he let out a sleepy sigh and felt it go directly into the front of Juno’s shirt. He hummed softly, just to ensure Juno was awake, then, upon feeling a shift beneath him, squirmed his way up to press a kiss to Juno’s lips.

Nureyev hadn’t expected his endeavor to be a failure.

Juno caught him with one hand on his chest and a dead look in his eye, mouth agape with a thousand things unsaid while Nureyev just knit his brow.

“Dear,” he began, trying not to sound too offended.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Juno all but interrogated.

Nureyev opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“I received a head injury, didn’t I?” He returned. “That’s quite difficult then.”

“Stupid question,” Juno sighed, though his voice felt a little too self-deprecating upon the words. “Do you know where we are?”

“Your quarters on the Carte Blanche,” Nureyev answered easily. “Functionally our quarters on the Carte Blanche.”

Juno swallowed, and for the life of him, Peter couldn’t come to the conclusion of why Juno stared past him like he was looking down the barrel of his own grave. 

“Love,” Nureyev started again. “Are you doing alright?”

Juno nodded.

“Bad day?” He prompted.

“Something like that,” Juno sighed.

“Talk to me, my dear,” Nureyev pressed. “I can’t read your mind and pick out exactly what you want me to guess. I can only do so much from the outside.”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry for anything,” Peter returned quickly. “Do you want me to stay in bed with you for a while, or would you rather be alone?”

“I think you should go to the clinic and make sure your head’s cleared,” Juno replied.

Nureyev was fairly sure the squeeze to his hand was meant to be reassuring, but Juno’s grip felt more like a desperate vice than a passing assurance. 

“Juno, if you need anything at all, you know where to find me,” Peter added before getting up.

He couldn’t tell whether the ache in his head made it difficult to rise from bed or if that was just the burning in his chest at seeing that Juno hadn’t moved an inch. Rather, he turned on his side and brought the blankets a little closer to his chest, though without any visible effort to sleep. His eye remained blank and tired and unblinking, boring a hole into some patch of wall Peter couldn’t see the value of.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be here,” Juno finally managed to reply.

“And if you need to talk—“

“Get your head checked out, honey,” Juno muttered into the blankets. “I’ll be here.”

By the time Nureyev managed to get his bandages removed and his injury cleared, Juno too had tumbled out of bed, if only to lurk around the edges of the kitchen and stare at the cabinets as if they would yield some sort of answer to a vast, unspoken question. 

Peter intended to greet him, if not with touch and affection, an offering of it. Whether or not Juno wanted to be within a few feet of anybody else on a bad day varied greatly. Sometimes the best Nureyev could do was sit in the same room as him and merely ensure he didn’t exist alone, while other days were better passed in solitude, save for occasional knocks with offers of food and invitations to family stream and game nights.

Other days, Juno would accept the offer for a hug and sigh the weight of the word into Nureyev’s shoulder, as if, for just a moment, they might bear it together.

However, Juno didn’t receive him with any kind of message regarding the hug he had offered with slightly outstretched arms. Rather, he nodded his hello and made a shoddy excuse about needing to run to the bathroom before all but dashing down a hall that, if Nureyev was remembering correctly, was in the opposite direction of his stated target.

Nureyev really wished he had some assignment for the day so he would have something to focus on other than the twinge in his chest.

Juno, for as much as he fled his problems, had never been adept at doing the same with his emotions. Something seemed to be coming off of him in waves, and based on his hasty escape from the kitchen, it was something Nureyev was not meant to have seen.

Peter did his best to steel himself. He swallowed. He tried to pretend he hadn’t just spent the last two minutes washing his hands while his head paced in desperate circles around such a minute moment. He found none of it did any good, no matter how tight he clenched his jaw.

He needed something menial. 

Nureyev didn’t remember when he managed to take out the cutting board and knife, but before he was truly aware of what he was doing, he found himself with a small pile of fruit and a plate, all cleaned and prepared to be left at the foot of a door he sincerely doubted would open for his company. 

Perhaps Juno was merely on edge, one of those solitary bad days creeping up on him after what had to be the disturbing sight of Peter’s injury.

Nureyev drove the knife through another piece of fruit.

Perhaps Juno’s particular spiral dealt with the kind of thinking that would lead him to feel guilty for turning down touch at all, and he would rather spare himself the pain than go through the trouble of communicating that.

Nureyev drove the knife through another piece of fruit.

Perhaps Peter had done something wrong when first waking up from the stun and had forgotten the matter altogether. Perhaps Juno had seen fit to avoid someone incompetant enough to receive such a mission-threatening injury in the first place, jeopardizing the safety of the entire crew, not to mention the success of their larger moral crusade. Perhaps Juno had realized that he had better things to do than waste his time on someone whose charm was a patchwork of other personalities and whose offensive caricature of allure was merely a piecemeal army of makeups and creams and dyes losing their war against time itself.

Nureyev gasped when he nearly drove the knife through his finger.

“Ransom?” Juno called from down the hall. 

From the sound of it, Juno was poking his head out of the door of his quarters. Nureyev didn’t look to confirm his suspicion, gaze and hands both hovering back and away from the cutting board, as if the knife that had almost sliced through his thumb might rear its head and bite him of its own accord.

The shock dissipated into a bristling anger he wanted more than anything to quell. 

“I’m fine,” he returned, the battle between terseness and professionalism leaving his voice cold and flat.

“Do you need anything?”

“Don’t worry about me, dear,” Nureyev called back. “At any rate, you should be focusing on taking care of yourself.”

Juno didn’t respond, but Nureyev almost heard the door close over the sound of his knife returning to the cutting board and making smaller and smaller pieces of the fruit that had nearly cost him an injury of the hands, one of the few things he could say he had truly preserved against time. 

When he was bored enough to consider himself finished, Nureyev piled the fruit onto the plate, tried and failed to arrange it into a cheerful, multicolored pattern, and then carried it to Juno’s room. It was strange, in a way, to be performing penance for an act he did not remember, though something cold and hard in his chest had already decided that an apology was necessary.

Logically, he knew they needed to have a conversation at some point. That didn’t necessarily have to be now. The fruit at which he still held his irrational, misplaced bitterness didn’t need to be his olive branch, nor did it need to be the catalyst for a discussion they could have once Juno could stand to be in the same room as him.

Instead, he knocked. He didn’t wait for a reply, merely opening the door by half and placing the plate atop the doorside dresser. Nureyev left before Juno could so much as greet him.

Peter began to regret taking the incident so personally when Juno’s chair remained empty at dinner. As a secondary olive branch for an infraction Juno didn’t even know about, Nureyev left early to bring him a plate.

This time, he stood in silent patience after knocking.

“Juno,” he called firmly.

No reply.

“Dear, I brought you a plate,” Nureyev added.

“You brought me a plate earlier.”

“Love.”

A few footsteps made their way across the floor before the door opened from the inside and Nureyev found himself face to haggard face with Juno Steel.

Juno could have looked like something dredged up from the bottom of the ocean and Nureyev would’ve still found him beautiful. Even if exhaustion clung to the rings under his eyes and dragged his shoulders into an uncomfortable looking slump, Nureyev’s heart skipped a beat nonetheless, and he couldn’t help being struck with the realization that after only a day apart from one another, he had missed him terribly.

“Hey,” Juno smiled tersely.

“I brought you dinner,” Nureyev explained.

“You said.”

“Do you feel like you could eat right now?”

Juno swallowed, then sighed, then nodded.

“Will you stay with me if I do? I—” Juno broke off to clear his throat. “If you feel like you’re up for a—well, you know. Conversation.”

“Of course, of course,” he returned all too quickly, pretending his nerves didn’t sputter and ache when his elbow brushed Juno’s on the way through the door.

It took a few minutes of picking at a pasta recipe Nureyev had managed to successfully boil the water for in order for Juno to finish his food, silent and hunched and almost purposefully avoiding Nureyev’s glances. 

Meanwhile, Peter did everything he could to keep himself busy. He never particularly liked cleaning, nor did he have any practice in caring for a space that truly belonged to him, but for some reason, a strange, stinging sensation bit at the back of his mind, and he was near certain he would run the risk of his nerves overboiling if he did not return Juno’s scattered pens to his desk mug immediately. For some odd reason, any kind of clutter seemed to tug on the edges of his eyes, and he couldn’t help but say his thanks that the two of them were not within his own quarters.

“Nureyev,” Juno called after a moment. “You’re pacing.”

“Oh,” he sputtered, freezing halfway through the next step. “I suppose I am.”

“I’m sorry that I made you nervous earlier,” Juno started, raising an eyebrow when Nureyev opened and closed his mouth to rebuke his claim. “I should’ve found a better way to talk to you.”

Nureyev took a deep breath before taking a seat on the bed at Juno’s side. Juno put aside the plate to meet his eye.

“And so you have,” he tried to smile. “Right here, right now. Say your piece, love, though I’m afraid to say I might have to take a turn to apologize as well.”

Juno blinked.

“What?”

“For—” Nureyev trailed off, the firmness of his mentally practiced apology beginning to waver until his words were nearly a question. “Whatever I might have said when I wasn’t entirely of my senses. Though, I would like to know what my infraction might have been, if that was the case. If not, well—I suppose I’ll find something to lament.”

“You, uh,” Juno broke off to clear his throat. “You thought I was a hookup—”

“Oh, dear God,” Nureyev grimaced.

“And you didn’t remember any of the last two years or so,” Juno finished. “You thought—well, you thought that everything that happened after Miasma was some kind of dream, and you put some pieces together that if we were on a starhauler and I was with you—”

“You never left,” Peter finished. “Oh, Juno, I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Juno sputtered, voice splintering in its bitterness. “You—that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you cry. Hell, that’s the only time I’ve ever seen you cry, and you’re sorry for me?”

“We’ve had this conversation, dear,” Nureyev tried to break him off as gently as possible.

“Yeah, just because I fucked up doesn’t change that you tolerate me or whatever, but I just—” Juno broke off to swallow. “I guess I knew how bad it was, but seeing it was different.”

“May I touch you, love?”

Juno nodded, letting out a sigh when Nureyev took him by the hand.

“So what do you propose our solution is, then?” Nureyev prompted, thankful as much for the warm touch of Juno’s hand as he was something to do with his still-twitchy fingers as his thumb rubbed a gentle circle onto his skin.

“You find someone you don’t need to forgive,” Juno snorted mirthlessly.

“Juno,” Nureyev chided, trying his best to return the cruel joke with a kind one. “Have you seen me, dear? If I wanted someone else, I would have them.”

“You’re so stupid,” Juno managed a watery laugh in return.

“I take pride in it, dear,” Nureyev smiled and squeezed his hand. “But truly, where do we move forward to?”

“Well, if you could not get shot in the head in the future, that’d be great,” Juno joked.

Nureyev recognized the coping mechanism, and while the joke was still dry and pained and a little too bitter for his liking, it was better than the self-deprecating jab of before.

“I’ll do my best, though I can’t make any promises,” he replied lightly.

“I’m not gonna make you sit here and massage my insecurities all night, but could we—” Juno broke himself off, a cringe settling over a face that quickly buried itself in one of his hands. “God, that was gonna be stupid. Forget it.”

“Is more touch okay?”

Juno nodded, letting out a sigh when Nureyev pulled him into an embrace.

Juno always had a way of saying exactly what he felt, and if that made him demanding and annoying to some, it made him transparent and straightforward to Nureyev. However, he seemed to have a bear of a time asking for affection when he needed, rather than wanted it. Thankfully, a year together and a surplus of honest talks about more feelings than Peter admitted to having in the last decade, he knew a request for a hug when he saw one.

“There you are, dear,” he murmured into Juno’s head, pressing a kiss there. “I love you more than I can say. I’m sorry your guilt is not so easily sated, and I’m sorry that it was stirred up again. If it helps to hear it once more, my love for you and our painful past are not mutually exclusive. You don’t presently hurt me, and I am happier for having spent this portion of my life with you. I am known by very few people in this universe, Juno, and I’m proud to say that you are one of them.”

Juno just nodded into his chest.

“And I’m gonna tell you if I’m not mad at you next time. I’ll think of a system. A nod or something,” he murmured, words smothered by Nureyev’s shirt.

“You can think of it tomorrow, dear detective,” Peter smiled. “Now, I must ask, do you intend on attending board game night?”

Juno shook his head.

“Then how would you feel if I stayed for some while?” Nureyev offered, quickly filling the silence once more. “I won’t be offended if you would rather be alone.”

“Stay, please,” Juno returned.

“Not out of guilt?”

“Not out of guilt,” Juno confirmed, pressing a little closer to his chest. “You’re warm and I’m cold and selfish.”

Nureyev opened his mouth to refute the point, but Juno’s quiet laugh made any genuine assurances that Juno was in fact, not selfish for wanting nice things, dissipate entirely. Instead, he dragged Juno back onto the bed and did his best to wrap him in as many limbs and blankets as he required without leaving his touch for a second. 

When Juno had been thoroughly little-spooned, Nureyev managed a faint laugh.

“What?” Juno accused.

“I’m just thankful, that’s all.”

“For what?”

Nureyev chuckled, then pressed a kiss to the top of Juno’s head.

“You got me out of doing dishes, love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAAA FINALLY! HUGS!!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below ill give you a passive aggressive reminder to drink water
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!

**Author's Note:**

> if it makes you feel a bit better. my google doc is called FORGET ME STICK
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill well i had a threat to go here but i forgot it
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


End file.
